City-building takes time and requires steady leadership

New active waterfront at Southport replaces the shuttered Shuffleton power plant thanks to long-term planning, rezoning, and follow through

As we approach primary election day I’ve been meeting with residents on their porches and in coffee houses. When they ask what distinguishes me in this race, I say city hall experience on top of my professional engineering and management background.

I’ll bring 26 years of experience to the Mayor’s office at a time when Renton is losing experience quickly.  We are about to lose two long-time dedicated elected officials with the retirements of Denis Law (16 years) and Don Persson (20 years). Starting in 2020, my 26 years as a Renton elected official will exceed by three years the combined experience of all other council members.   I’ve worked with 4 mayors, while everyone else on council and nearly all of our city department heads have only worked with one mayor  With the exception of Greg Zimmerman who runs our Planning/Building/Public Works, all our city department heads have turned over within the last five years.  Last year our Chief Executive Administrator Jay Covington, retired after a record-breaking 28 years in the second-in-command spot working for Renton’s past four Mayors. Fire and police chiefs have both recently retired.  All of their successors are phenomenal and I proudly helped select them, but we’ve lost some continuity with so much change.

Continuity is important because city-building takes time.  The Landing took 13 years from rezone to completion. Downtown revitalization has been a 25 year project from rezone, through city land purchases, creation of public amenities, public/private collaboration on our first modern mixed-use buildings– and we’re still nurturing it with one-way street conversions, incredible artwork and a project on our old city hall site.  Highlands revitalization has required 20 years of new utilities, rebuilt roads, and a new park and library to jump-start new private investment. Southport has taken over twenty years of planning, collaboration and focus to move from defunct power plant to mixed use tech campus.   The Quendall Terminal superfund cleanup and redevelopment project has taken 22 years of planning and staff time and may finally get it’s EPA clean-up preliminary permit approval next week.  I-405 Exit 3 took 15 years, the 167/405 flyover took 18 years, and we’ll finally build new lanes on I-405 from Renton to Bellevue after a 20 year regional planning and funding effort.  We’ve been acquiring property for 22 years to build May Creek Trail, and the I-405 rebuild will finally give us the pedestrian underpass we need to make our trail complete.

I was there for all the planning that is creating today’s successes.  For two decades our Council and Mayor have maintained a top level Renton Business Plan that guides everything we do in our city. Under state Growth Management law enacted in 1990, we developed and maintain a complex Comprehensive Plan with 9 distinct elements, from land use to utilities, with a 20 year horizon.  We track “concurrency” in these elements, to ensure that the infrastructure of our city (like road construction) is keeping up with our private development, and that our city’s growth is on plan with the region.  We also maintain and follow Community Plans, Park Plans, Arts and Culture Master Plan, Transportation Improvement Program plans, Capital Improvement Plans,  Airport Master Plan , Trails and Bicycle Plan, Downtown Core Plan, May Creek Basin Plan, and many other strategic planning documents.  I’ve represented Renton residents in the creation and adoption of all of these plans.

So I say this to you, Renton residents.  These plans belong to you, and you deserve to see continuing steady, sustainable progress on them.  Not only did your tax dollars pay for staff and consultant’s work on Renton’s plans, but you have given countless hours of input and volunteer effort to them. You’ve written us letters, attended meetings, participated in boards and commissions, and made your wishes known at council meetings.  In addition to all our shared committee work, for over twenty five years I’ve seen you come to the microphone during city council meetings, and let us know how you feel about details of these plans.  I’ve seen exuberance, excitement, frustration, and occasional tears, and I’ve helped course-correct when necessary. The plans we have created together are our future, and I’ll make sure we deliver on them.

Any candidate can promise to partner with others and make good decisions for Renton, but I can ALSO promise to deliver on the specific plans that we have created together over the last two decades.  I understand our shared plans and I remember what you said at the microphone and wrote in email when we were developing them.  I won’t start improvising on my own, spending your money, with ideas that out-of-step with our approved public plans. And I won’t throw away a valuable plan because I didn’t invent it, or I don’t understand it, or I’m too impatient to let a good plan succeed. I have the background to see when a plan needs to go back to the public for improvements.  Together we will constantly check or progress on all our long-term plans, collaboratively make the adjustments needed, and steer a steady, predictable course into our bright future.  We won’t get lost, because I was there when we charted the course.  That’s one of the ways my experience will help you as your next Mayor.